memorize

The verb 'memorize' was formed in English in the 1590s by adding the suffix '-ize' (from Greek '-ize‌​‍​‍​‌​‍​‍​‍​‌​‌​‌​‌​‌​‍​‍​‍​‍​‌​‍​‍​‌​‌​‌​‍​‍​‍​‍​‌​‍​‌​‌​‌​‍in,' used to form verbs meaning 'to make, to cause to be') to 'memory.' The noun 'memory' entered English in the 13th century from Anglo-French 'memorie,' from Latin 'memoria' (memory, recollection, the faculty of remembering), from 'memor' (mindful, remembering). The Latin adjective 'memor' derives from PIE *men- (to think, to remember), specifically from a reduplicated form *me-mn- that intensifies the sense of repeated or ongoing remembering.

Remarkably, 'memorize' originally meant the opposite of what it means today. In its earliest attestations, it meant 'to record for posterity' or 'to make memorable' — to cause something to be remembered by others, not to learn it oneself. Shakespeare used it this way in Henry VI, Part 1 (c. 1591): 'No longer on Saint Denis will we cry, / But Joan la Pucelle shall be France's saint. / Come in, and let us banquet royally / After this golden day of victory.' This sense — 'to commemorate' — was closer to the Latin 'memorāre' (to bring to remembrance, to relate). The shift to the modern meaning ('to commit to one's own memory, to learn by heart') occurred gradually during the 17th and 18th centuries and was complete by the 19th.

The PIE root *men- generated a vast family of 'memory' and 'mind' words. Latin 'memor' (mindful) gave 'memory,' 'remember' (from 'rememorārī,' to recall to mind), 'memoir' (from French 'mémoire,' a written account from memory), 'memorial' (something that preserves memory), 'memorandum' (a thing to be remembered), 'commemorate' (to remember together), and 'immemorial' (beyond the reach of memory). Latin 'mēns' (mind) gave 'mental,' 'mention,' and 'demented.' Latin 'monēre' (to cause to think) gave 'monitor,' 'monument,' 'admonish,' and 'premonition.'

Greek cognates from the same root include 'mnēmē' (μνήμη, memory), 'Mnēmosýnē' (Μνημοσύνη, the goddess of Memory, mother of the nine Muses), and 'mnēmonikón' (μνημονικόν, of or for memory) — the source of English 'mnemonic.' Sanskrit 'smarati' (remembers) and 'smṛti' (memory, tradition — also the class of Hindu scripture 'remembered' rather than 'heard') descend from the same PIE root with a characteristic s-mobile prefix.

The art of memorization — the conscious, systematic commitment of information to memory — was a central discipline in classical rhetoric, known as 'memoria,' one of the five canons of rhetoric alongside invention, arrangement, style, and delivery. Roman orators used the 'method of loci' (memory palace), associating items to be remembered with locations in an imagined building. This ancient technique remains one of the most effective memorization strategies known to cognitive science, still used by competitive memory athletes today.

In the digital age, 'memorize' has taken on a slightly different connotation — learning by rote is often contrasted unfavorably with understanding, yet the word itself embodies a profound truth: to hold something in mind is the foundation of all further thought.